ZDF Pilot shoot

Mandarin Film worked side by side with German national public service TV broadcaster ZDF to make four pilots for new series in China.

Mandarin Film was tasked with story and location scouting, logistics and permits for the four different stories, Kungfu camp, Children’s Room, School of China and Green 7, with a super-tight deadline – just 2 weeks!

Despite the limited budget and tight schedule, MF managed to come up with some great stories and the crew had a very successful trip filming across Beijing, Baoding and Wudangshan. The program has since received positive feedback from the audience and two of the shows have been put forward as potential series.

Kungfu Camp

Two German video gamers get off their couch and on a quest to find the real Chinese Kungfu. Heading to the Kungfu Academy sitting amongst beautiful mountains in Wudangshan, the two who have previously only ever done these Kung Fu moves in video games. They go cold turkey in the birthplace of Kung Fu and live and train with real Kungfu masters for three days.

Schools of China

It is rare for schools in China to open their doors to foreigners and was largely down to Mandarin Film’s relationship with CARFTE, the China government organization that works with foreign crews that made the difference in getting access. Focusing on what makes the German and Chinese education systems different, we followed a 15-year-old Chinese student during ‘one day in the life’ and observed his daily school routine.

Children room worldwide

A five-minute TV program made to explore the daily life and hobbies of children living in different parts of the world and understand the culture of other countries better. The decision to make one episode in China came quite late – only 4 days before the crew arrived China. MF staff turned around quickly and reached out to many potential characters through our network of personal connections and past projects and finally decided to follow 15 years old Chinese girl – Zhao Zihan and her best friends for one day, into their afterschool English class, Beijing subway and the park where young Chinese teenagers play Jianzi (a kind of keepy uppy football), skate boards, dance, etc.

Planned for the yearly “Green7” campaign, the new report is aimed to explore the green strategies that have been taken to tackle with smoggy atmosphere in megacities like Beijing. MF managed to find the most amazing characters --- British artist Matt Hope who invented the first environmental friendly “Breathing Bike” --- and Park View Green, one of the Greenest buildings in China --- that have been used to fight against air pollution.

Overall, the project was a great success, and the client clearly found Mandarin Film’s star Associate Producer Christina Yuan a great help….

“Christina, now that we are back in Germany I wanted to write and thank you. Thanks for the great time, the perfect work and your endless patience. You were our stringer, translator and babysitter all in one person, and we really appreciate this!” Andreas Simon, Producer, ZDF